You’ve known dread, and don’t try to deny it. Childhood is about dreading things like math tests or having lima beans for dinner or getting caught sneaking in after curfew, or sometimes terrible things like having the crap beaten out of you by your mom’s drunken boyfriend or something even worse, though hopefully not in your case. For an adult it might be meeting with the nasty boss or running into your ex at the grocery, or driving into New York City. We all dread the moment when we will cease to be, though some of us might do a pretty good job of coping with that one, for a time. What about seeing the dentist?
In the popular imagination that one’s right up there. This often leads to untold numbers who, once free of their parents, put off the next inevitable visit for far too long, and rest assured it will catch up with you sooner or later. Take it from one who’s been there, and it is not a pleasant memory. At that particular visit, the dentist treating this particular prodigal dental patient began drilling, made some comment like “Jesus, this looks like the black hole of Calcutta!” after which the offending molar was efficiently removed before the patient could even think about it. He was good at his craft, that guy.
It is always possible that you, my toothy friend, might be genetically blessed, or have combined the perfect diet with a disciplined oral hygiene routine that has enabled you to beat the odds and avoid such a fate. Or maybe there’s something magical in the water you drink. Hey, we all believe in miracles, don’t we? And immortality?
This writer pondered these things, though not too deeply, as he rode an Orange Line train downtown a few weeks back. To see the dentist, of all people, for a routine visit, the latest of many over a lot of years. Mom and dad would be so proud. This bout of pondering began with thoughts about getting old, and how he’d never taken the train to the dentist all these years until that moment. Sure, it was January, with a grim mess falling from the sky and spreading itself all around, but such trifles had never before deterred his pedaling downtown to get teeth serviced. He’d prided himself on his willingness to conquer any weather in this way, loved reading the minds of all those looking out from the warmed wombs of their vehicles: “look at that nut on the bike!,” one questionable assumption of his among many, all of which would drive him onward.
But not on this day. Was it a kind of capitulation? Sure, and so what? Isn’t that what getting old is all about? Riding the train has its charms, offering another opportunity to read minds, of which a packed Orange Line car offers so many, most of them focused intently on devices. Were they making important social connections with loved ones? Watching cat videos? Trading stocks? Or were they staring at a screen while their minds wandered into wild fantastic places, or fell into the void of daily existential angst?
What is germane, here, is that dread was not in the picture. This writer had long ago come to terms with the specter of dental intervention, no small feat, given his early childhood adventures with 1950s-era medical technology: the big glass syringe filled with novocaine, that seemed to require countless injection points targeting various nerves; the low-speed drill (what was that thing?) followed by the high-speed drill, whose RPMs were probably not all that high compared to nowadays; those occasional days of multiple extractions. All of it experienced by a mind that was only just then learning about Dick and Jane and Spot and Puff in school, which is to say it was probably encountering terror for the first time.
Putting it kindly he’d had pretty lousy teeth as a kid, and there was trauma involved, and it didn’t occur to him at the time of how lucky he was, compared to all the impoverished children around the world doomed to a lifetime of rot and pain and no dental care whatsoever and eventually no teeth at all. Such a thought might not have provided much comfort to his six-year-old mind anyway.
The point is he’d come a long way in 70 years, or so he liked to think, sitting in that train where whatever murmurs or stirrings of PTSD he’d once known had pretty much faded into silence. A mental health miracle of sorts, leaving him on this day with idle thoughts about people on their phones and how happy he was to not be on a bike, headed downtown. To a new dentist, of all things, after many years with the topnotch now-retired predecessor, a woman with a great reputation and the chops to show for it, in a pleasant office in a big downtown building. She’d even had a a little dog who’d accompanied her to work in the final years, and both were blessed with a very personable disposition, something you don’t always get with medical people, or dogs either, for that matter.
But on this day there was also a bonus: new public art! Downtown! Something called WINTERACTIVE, courtesy of friends up in Montreal, where they know a few things about the dark months, and isn’t that where they spend their winters in warm tunnels, like so many Canadian rabbits? Sheer genius!
But no, this was outdoor art, advertised as a chance for Bostonians “to enjoy the winter season like Quebecers!,” who it turns out are a hardy lot, a group whom this writer intended to join after disembarking from the train. Of course the six blocks from the Chinatown stop to Franklin Street only included a couple of the works involved, which as it turns out were scattered around the downtown area. Big city downtowns all over the world took a big hit from covid, in case you didn’t know, as lockdowns and remote working not only depopulated them of nine-to-fivers, but also killed the many businesses dependent on those folk’s money. A slow but steady worldwide revival has been in the works for a few years now, with limited success in beantown thus far. WINTERACTIVE, to the business people trying to stimulate a local renaissance, was another arrow in the quiver or tool in the toolkit, as it is said nowadays. Bullet in the chamber or nuke in the bomb bay might also fit, but then again maybe not. This was just street art, after all.
The only thing missing was the element of surprise, no small thing. Imagine walking down dreary Washington Street on a dreary day, not even able to stare at your phone due to the dreary drizzle, muttering to yourself about the long crummy winter, to suddenly encounter not one but two giant clown heads dripping with slushy snow, wedged high in an alley! Could you then not help yourself from gasping, then smiling, getting a hint of what it’s like to be a Quebecer, or Quebecoise, if such is your persuasion? Is that not cool, or “tres cool” as they might say in the Paris of North America? Is this not a fine antidote for dreariness, and might it not also be effective for Seasonal Affective Disorder? Or somebody on their way to the dentist (not this guy) coping with their PTSD as they struggle with dental woes? The therapeutic possibilities of two giant clown heads wedged into an alley are endless, when you think about it.
But wait, there’s more! Just a few blocks up the street was a second installation, this time a largish steel construction that vaguely resembled the initial framing of a small oddly-shaped building, perhaps some modernist dwelling. Boston does suffer from a severe shortage of housing, after all. Of course, this structure was unmistakably patterned after a whale, so maybe somebody, probably named Jonah, had commissioned it, after obtaining the many zoning variances it would have required. Jonah had better be of smallish stature, and not mind street traffic walking past at all hours. Or drunks wielding harpoons.
Just kidding! As you already know, none of that is the case, for this was street art, whose sole purpose was to distract and amuse and remind the more aware among us of the fragility of the natural world, where Save the Whales has long been a rallying cry. Besides making some people rich, whales have forever proved inspirational, as well, for those who love all that H.sapiens have not wrought. Whales are huge and gentle and they swim all over the world, and they breathe air and suckle their young, just like us, and for God’s sake they can sing!
Of course whales can be terrifying, as well, and not just if you happen to be a seal or krill. There are a few kayakers and some folks with even bigger boats-turned-play-objects who could tell you unnerving stories about orcas. In fact, scary cetacean encounters with H.sapiens have a long and colorful history. The Jonah story is one of the earliest, and later we get Moby Dick and then that episode in Pinocchio. Whereas Melville, the Pride of Pittsfield MA, had freely admitted to basing his story on “wild legends of the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries,” it is not clear if Carlo Collodi, the Pride of Florence, ever acknowledged his debt to the Book of Jonah. In a serious Catholic country where everybody must surely know all the memorable Bible stories, it might not’ve been necessary, though do Catholics even bother with the hebraic Old Testament? Do you?
So it was with a reflective and amused and not especially heavy heart that this art-loving dental patient proceeded down the hill to his new practitioner. The weather might’ve been dreary, but all weather, especially of the wetter kind, is visually interesting and beautiful in its way. The only exception might be a day with gorgeous clear sunny skies, the kind everybody loves except for photographers, who will mostly tell you such brilliant glory is visually useless, for the most part. Crummy weather also once added charm to the usually crowded and noisy downtown by clearing out the streets, but covid has turned every day in that locale into a day of peace and quiet, not necessarily a good thing, as has already been mentioned.
Whether all the WINTERACTIVE pieces will bring more bodies and liveliness is anybody’s guess, but hey you’ve gotta start somewhere. And of course the hope is that those who come for the sculpture will also go for the dim sum in nearby Chinatown, or the mixed drinks, alcoholic and non-, in whatever bars have survived, and of course there’s always the coffee and lobster somewhere, and the souvenir and t-shirt stands with Boston sports team regalia, and endless reminders of local history and patriotism that are key elements of the beantown brand. And a few people might even notice that a lot of Boston architecture is truly gorgeous, and that the birding in Post Office Square is surprisingly good, particularly during spring migration. There’s a great world of Boston possibility out there; come on down and check it out!
But on this day there was time for none of that. The appointment was mostly uneventful, as expected. The new guy was friendly, and he and this writer even got into some meaningful conversations – when the patient’s mouth was free – about shared experiences, such as living in California, along with bonding over old bicycles, something one cannot do with every medical provider. He was also competent, a genuine Professor of Dentistry who teaches at a nearby college, and had a lot of cutting edge toys to play with, cameras and such. But unfortunately this utterly pleasant encounter had to end with a kind of Columbo “just one more thing” scenario, whereby the man aimed his little video camera at the left canine and said something like “see this dark spot here? It kind of concerns me, and would you mind if we do some X-rays?” Talk about discouraging words! And so smoothly presented!
The short version is that he’d come upon what looked like tooth decay, a phenomenon not present in this particular mouth for years. This writer remembers a time when the professional response to tooth decay was pretty straightforward: drill & fill, or extract if necessary, and if that leaves a gap then so be it. So old school! So primitive! Now we get crowns and implants and such, if we are financially fortunate. This dentist, clearly at the top of his game, surveyed this canine and allowed for all possible options, including a root canal. This writer has never had a root canal, but has memories of the root canal as some kind of procedure of last choice, an event mentioned in standup comedy punchlines, as in “it was about as fun as a root canal” or something like that.
This nice guy topnotch practitioner of the dental arts was totally nonchalant about everything, reassuring about how he’d try to fill it, but figured it would probably escalate to a crown, and further escalation was always possible until he “got in there.” He also promised the procedure wouldn’t be especially painful, as he was competent at addressing this, as well. Local anesthesia has come a long way from the days you’d get a big slug of whiskey in the barber’s chair, and isn’t that great? So comforting! The most distinctive part of this conversation was that it was so totally unexpected, making any reassurance a heavy lift for our dental professor, who knew none of the ugly ancient history lurking in the dim recesses of his patient’s mind. Why couldn’t this visit have ended with that conversation about bikes?
And so it was with a somewhat heavy heart that our hero walked out onto Franklin Street, having made his next appointment with destiny two weeks hence, at 9:30 on a Tuesday; better it should be at high noon. And suddenly there it was, hello darkness my old friend, the familiar PTSD-ogre of his childhood. Whispering vaguely, as ogres tend to do when they’re not growling, about suffering-to-be looming on the horizon that was sure to resemble suffering-that-once-was, or worse. One distinctive feature of trauma is the unfortunate certainty that amped-up painful memories will surely be worse in the future reality. So crazy!
But hey! On this day there was an antidote to this gloomy moment, augmented as it was by the gray wet sky, at least for those who think in clichés. We’re not talking a trip to a bar or sampling recreational drugs, the diversion of choice for so many, but perhaps something much better, at least in that moment: WINTERACTIVE, of course! Of which there were a few more “works” left to behold and bewonder, if that’s even a word.
Or perplex and confuse, which is not to say less effective. Nothing’s more distracting than bewilderment, a major aspect of the age in which we now live. The next art piece was listed as somewhere in front of 175 Federal St, which is confusing in itself as that building stands alone, with streets on all four sides sharing the same address. This being downtown Boston, the concept of what constitutes “Federal St” down there has been lost to history and too much new construction.
Of course another prominent fun presentation, something like that whale dwelling or those giant clown heads, would’ve made it all easy, but it was late in the day and getting dark, not even any fading sunlight to help make sense of things. The broad wet vacant sidewalks at the base of 175 Fed offered little that was distinctive, a walk-around suggesting just this curious stone cube, which had a ramp and a walkway inside with large glass display windows, the whole of it totally dark. The initial impression was of some kind of maintenance structure, access to HVAC or electrical equipment or something, but of course that trip around the building confirmed that this was, indeed, a whimsical or serious work of art, one meant to be viewed in better light, perhaps.
The wonders of digital photography made it possible to get an exposure that sort of made visible what was behind the glass, some miniature mountainous vista, along the lines of what might be found on a model railroad. The only conclusion that could be reached about this was that a second trip was now necessary, in better light. It’s also true that mystery and distraction were all that was required in the moment, for which the thing served its purpose well. Besides, it was excellent shelter from the rain and wind, no small thing.
A similar experience was to unfold at One Boston Place up the street, an address which held many memories for this former bike courier, who’d once pass by there several times a day, headed for the mail room up on the 19th floor. Approaching the Place in the darkness triggered a random memory from those days, for it was while making a pickup one morning that a mail guy burst in to announce matter-of-factly that the space shuttle had just blown up, with no more emotion than if reporting that Jim Rice had just hit a home run. That would make the date January 28, 1986, and this onetime courier usually recalls that moment whenever the day rolls around, same as he remembers Christa McAuliffe, the schoolteacher on that doomed liftoff. She was 37 years old, as was he at the time. There were six others on that flight but she’s the one most everybody remembers, and there is a museum and a school bearing her name up in Concord, NH. Just a week after that tragedy in 1986 we got Halley’s Comet. What did it all mean?
This time, the only distinctive item on the sidewalk was a large darkened glass cubicle covered with condensation, which contained some large shadowy figure inside. By now this experienced WINTERACTIVE devotee had learned a few things, and sure enough, playing with the exposure settings on the camera readily turned up a life-sized unicorn, if one assumes the mythical creature is as big as a typical horse. The effect was subtle but once again magical in a way, enhanced by the obscurity due to the weather. In fact, seeing this thing on a sunny day might prove to be less enchanting. A big unicorn in a glass box? Is this a promo for some Disney product?
At that point there was little more to do but take the train home. It was a total pleasure to ride in comfort through the darkness, and even the subtle mildewy emanations from all the wet clothing was pleasant, like entering a war surplus store back in the day. Are there any of those still around?
There is a kind of post script to all this. Just a few days later the esteemed Globe art reviewer, Murray White, a thoughtful and hard-working critic who’s covered the large and very active art scene in the city for six years. offered his two cents on WINTERACTIVE. As an art critic, he resists settling for fun and distraction, the low bar set thus far by yours truly, who was more than willing to settle for having his gloomy thoughts of the day diverted as they were. Mr. White, who happens to be from Toronto, has thought about these things a great deal more, as that is his passion, and like any good critic, he can offer principles, like “pubic art is a delicate realm that should be practiced with at least a little sensitivity” and “public art starts and ends with a sense of place. What it can reveal or provoke about the spaces it occupies, in the very specific context of the city itself.”
By these measures WINTERACTIVE fails for the most part. HIs claim that the art displayed “means nothing to Boston at all” seems like a stretch, but Murray the critic is also self-aware and preemptively admits that, in a way, “I’m a wet blanket, and can’t this just be fun?” His main gripe seems to center around how this is basically a random collection of pieces from a different place altogether. He goes on to be a constructive critic (those are the best kind) and laments how Boston has its own public art organizations, that should get on the ball and come up with a locally-sourced set of pieces, and why didn’t that happen in the first place? Art critics can be an insufferable lot, or such is the opinion of this down-to-earth naive and uncultured art lover, but when a critic makes a point like this, he hits a home run, sez I.
The critic does not get the final word, here. A few days later the Globe business editor acknowledged her colleague’s thoughtful opinion, while noting that WINTERACTIVE is getting lots of media buzz, positive and negative, and isn’t buzz the whole point? “High-brow art it is not, but it could be part of downtown’s economic revival” is her summation, and truer words cannot be spoken, at least if if you’re a business columnist.
Art! What’s it good for? A stimulant for a downtown revival? Revelations about one’s sense of place? A cure for dread? Especially public street art, as opposed to the hallowed items found in sacred indoor spaces like galleries and museums. A number of other WINTERACTIVE works have subsequently popped up to add to the few mentioned here. What might the “experience” of them be like, and what if it were an anomalous warm and springlike day in February, say on the Lunar New Year? Might it provide some different answers to all these penetrating questions? Or would one only come up with more questions? And what’s wrong with questions and can there ever be too many of those? Of course not; just ask any four-year-old.
